


Overtures

by entanglednow



Category: The Hobbit (2012)
Genre: Humor, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 01:21:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo knows that cities are not built on companionship and the occasional plate of scones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Overtures

It didn't take long at all before Erebor was full of very large dwarves carrying heavy things around, sometimes at speed. Bilbo decided quite early on that he was more likely to get in the way than contribute in a helpful fashion. Much as it pained him, because he worried, he worried constantly, about contributing. He would very much like to. If only he could find something he was good at. The dwarves he knew insisted that his company was enough, but Bilbo knows that cities are not built on companionship and the occasional plate of scones.

Though very soon indeed most of the rubble is cleared, and some of the other levels are now accessible, dusty and not yet heated, since the forges haven't been going for very long at all. But they're still much nicer than the rooms they've been sleeping in off the half-collapsed hall (which Bilbo thinks used to be larders, or perhaps cupboards?) 

There's a little pushing and shoving, and a lot of shouts of 'mine!' ringing around. Bilbo briefly registers Kili's hand on his shoulder as he rushes past, insisting that 'if he didn't hurry up he wouldn't get a good one.' 

But Bilbo's in no hurry at all. The place is enormous, so he's very sure there will be rooms left, and he's not so fussy - he's no longer _quite_ so fussy about where he puts his things.

He's barely paying attention when a dwarf - who Bilbo vaguely remembers being introduced to, though he's embarrassed to realise he doesn't remember his name - beckons him away from the stream of those seeking a new living space. He leads him up several levels, and across a rather wide walkway. Then through a set of large and rather imposing double doors.

The room they end up in appears to be made entirely of gold, and columns, and empty space. Huge, vast amounts of empty space. Though it is without doubt, living quarters.

"Umm. I'm fairly certain there's been some sort of mistake," Bilbo decides. But when he turns around to look the dwarf has vanished back through the doors. If Bilbo knew his name he could probably call him back. It really is most vexing. 

Bilbo wanders as far in as he dares, curiousity spiked now, past dusty tables, and weapon racks, as far as the marble floor (which he suspects he'd be able to see his face in if someone swept) stretches. Until he finds a second set of double doors, rather grander than the ones they'd come through. He pushes them, because he's in here now and he might as well see what's behind them. Though they're heavy enough that he needs to put his shoulder into it, muttering all the while about architecture ill-suited to hobbits.

It turns out to be the bedroom. Which continues along the theme, because it's at least twenty feet to the bed, and the bed is enormous. He feels sure one could fit six or seven people in it -

\- if one was inclined to try.

"Oh my."

The bedroom also has what Bilbo thinks is an unnecessary number of columns. Why would a bedroom need so many columns? Unless to remind you how far the roof had to fall if it gave way, every time you looked up at night. Not that Bilbo was insulting the fine, dwarven workmanship, it's just that the place had had a dragon in it for sixty years after all. He could be forgiven for wondering if everything was still structurally sound. He feels quite dizzy looking up.

No, this wouldn't do, this wouldn't do at all. He'd be more than happy with something smaller, something significantly smaller. In fact he was going to go and find the very polite dwarf that had swept him to this room and ask very nicely if he could be housed somewhere else. Though he does briefly worry that all the rooms will look like this. He has visions of getting lost in the middle of the night looking for a bathroom, and knocking into a column, bringing a whole cavernous, golden room crashing down upon his head.

It turns out that there were far more appropriate rooms a few levels down, with not a single column at all, and almost nothing in the way of impenetrable doors, or golden mantles. He still can't hope to touch the ceiling, even if he stood on a chair. But it's a much smaller and more welcoming room for just him. He breathes a sigh of relief and his things end up there eventually (which consist of a small chest of gold, and what survived the trek to Erebor.) Bilbo is not entirely sure what one does with a small chest of gold, but it's one of those things that it's handier to have than not he supposes.

He thinks the little room has potential.

Of course Thorin spoils it a touch later when he shows up and glares at everything, in a pointed sort of way that Bilbo thinks he's supposed to understand. 

Bilbo offers him tea, which is a thing he can do now, and there's something comforting about that. Thorin probably has people to make him tea now he's king. But he doesn't seem in any hurry to leave, and if Bilbo feels a little warmer about that than is seemly, well there's no one here to gossip. 

-

A few days later a dwarf shows up in his new room holding an ornately carved box, which appears to be full of clothes.

"Master Baggins. I am Boli and I bring this with compliments." There's a bowing dwarf holding a heavy box, and manners dictate that Bilbo take it. Though it is rather heavy and he has to set it down on the floor with an embarrassing noise.

"Er, thank you. Umm. Why? Why are there clothes? I mean they're very nice, but they're not really -" He's very carefully lifting them. "I'm really not sure I can pull off all the buckles, and the leather braiding, and studs - really? It's very dwarvish. Which isn't an insult," he says hurriedly. "Obviously, I'm just not as - as imposing. Small hands, compared to you. I don't - with the buttons - hmm." He stops talking.

"Anything that you wish changed -" Boli starts, and Bilbo realises with a sinking feeling that he's being ungrateful, and complaining, and making a fuss, and this is a very bad start. He'd promised himself that he would try not to fuss so much.

"No, no, it's lovely, they're _lovely_. But it's just not done to accept things when you're still - when everything's going on. I don't want to live on charity. I have gold now." Bilbo gestures, and then wonders if it's rude to brag about it, and point in general. But Boli just nods like he already knows. "I'm more than prepared to pay for them. Since someone already went to the trouble of making them." Bilbo's already digging for coins, though it occurs to him that he doesn't have the faintest idea what things cost.

Boli winces, visibly. Which suggests Bilbo's missing something, that he's probably insulted someone, or committed some horrible social gaffe. But the dwarf accepts barely a quarter of the gold Bilbo's offering, with a pained look, and a very deep bow.

So Bilbo ends up with some very...nice clothes, that he didn't really want, but paid for anyway. Though the sleeveless robe is a bit much. He couldn't take himself seriously walking around in that, and he's sure no one else would either. It's very warm though, especially the fur, so he throws it over the bed.

-

Thorin may be king now but he's still very good at glaring until people go away. No matter how urgent their business seems to be. As someone who's listened politely to far too many conversations he didn't want to be part of in his life, Bilbo can see the appeal. Though he's been on the end of that glare too often to actually like it.

A group of short, strange dwarves wait in a huddle when Thorin abandons them to come see what Bilbo's doing in the kitchens. Which, if he's honest, is mostly serving while Bombur stirs, and Bofur tells jokes.

Thorin's glare today is frustrated, but only incidentally offered in Bilbo's direction, as if the world in general is proving itself difficult to affect through sheer force of will.

"You look like you need a break." Bilbo feels compelled to point out. "Lunch?"

The silence is answer enough, and since a kingdom shouldn't have a hungry king, Bilbo puts together something and sets it in front of him. Thorin eats without having to be urged, but with a grudging reluctance that Bilbo suspects is for show. The food is very good, he knows because he helped make it.

"I hear you've been helping everyone," Thorin says, sounding quietly disgruntled.

"I've been trying," Bilbo admits. "Though I'm afraid I don't have a talent for stonework, or the strength to lift heavy debris. I do what I can though."

"You do far more than that. Though I shouldn't be surprised, after all this time." 

Bilbo's starting to think that dwarves find modesty suspicious. The way they poke at it, as if to find something lurking beneath. But Bilbo is rather enjoying watching the broken kingdom come to life, watching dwarves he's come to care for work to pull it alive again. Even though it's not really his.

Thorin's staring at him again, as if Bilbo has missed something rather important.

"You're looking at me like I've done something," Bilbo says. "Did I? Do something that is?"

"No," Thorin says. "No, you have done nothing at all." There's nothing but frustration in the words and Bilbo is going to ask what he means by that. But Thorin's already being whisked away, by people who are probably very important indeed. And he's left standing there, holding Thorin's empty plate, and feeling very confused indeed.

-

The necklace really is too much.

Literally too much as it turns out when he lifts it in both hands. Bilbo's neck wasn't built to support that much gold, and he'd never realised how heavy emeralds were, never had cause to lift one. He tells the dwarf at the door that he couldn't possibly accept it, since it was clearly very expensive, and he really hadn't done anything to deserve it. Couldn't possibly have done. He puts it back in its box, and shuts it, and is most insistent about it.

The dwarf at the door stares at him as if he's mad for a very long minute, then bows and heads off down the corridor.

-

Bilbo is trying vainly to wash ink out of the sleeve of his shirt in the small sink in his room. The shirt had come a long way with him and he's loath to throw it out, but he fears there's no salvaging it. He leaves it to soak (under no illusion that it will magically become cleaner, but hoping nonetheless.)

The knock at his door has a rather familiar sort of demand to it. So Bilbo isn't surprised at all to open it and find Thorin on the other side, even at what would normally be considered an unsociable hour. He waves him in, and then shuts the door behind him, because that's what you do when you have guests. Though after a long period of silence Bilbo half suspects Thorin's going to stand there all night and not talk at all. 

He thinks about offering more tea, tea is acceptable at any time of night. But Thorin takes a breath not a second later.

"You are the most frustrating creature," he says quietly.

"That's ..." Bilbo has no idea what to say to that. "I'm sorry," he tries, and that sounds rather more like an apology than a question. Which just makes Thorin sigh.

"I had thought we were of the same mind you and I. But you refuse everything, so I think perhaps I was mistaken." There's a quiet sort of surrender to his face, that Bilbo doesn't like at all.

"I don't understand," Bilbo says. Because it's always best to be honest when you have no idea what's going on. Someone will usually explain it to him eventually.

Though Thorin simply stares at him as if he thinks Bilbo's being confusing on purpose, and he can't work out _why_.

The frustrated noise is slow in building, though Bilbo is still surprised when he finds himself pressed roughly back against the closed door, breath startled out of him by the sudden, aggressive pressure of Thorin's mouth over his own. Barely a moment to register the scrape of beard, and the deep warmth of his hair before Thorin's pulling back, leaving Bilbo to sway drunkenly without his support.

Thorin seems to brace himself, as if waiting for a slap.

It's very hard to get a grip on anything Thorin's wearing, but Bilbo tries his very best, and he half suspects what he mostly has a grip on is Thorin's hair, when he drags him close and gets his mouth under his again. Thorin doesn't seem to mind very much. Judging by the way he's trying to drag him up by his waist. Bilbo feels like he should object to being pulled off his feet, like a girl in springtime, but his brain is somewhat fuzzy as to why that's bad. Or why he's thinking about complaining.

...

Bilbo's bed is small and not golden in the slightest. There's still ink on one of the blankets, and paper shoved beneath the pillows. 

Words like _scandalous_ and _unseemly_ come to mind. But Bilbo's too busy digging through the many layers of dwarven clothing to get to the impossible heat beneath, all muscle over bone, dusted with hair in a way that makes his fingers curl and dig in, and Thorin growl low in his throat. Things like this would give rise to gossip, even were they the sort of people no one would normally gossip about. But Bilbo hasn't felt particularly respectable for a while now, and Thorin is making heated sounds into his mouth that suggest he could not care less - big hands pushing into Bilbo's trousers hard enough to pop stitching. Ordinarily he would complain about that, but he has his own hands on the jumping muscle of Thorin's bare stomach and he has forgotten how to make words. Pieces of words are all he has now, and occasionally the punched-out sound of Thorin's name.

Thorin is heavy, though if Bilbo had ever thought that would be unpleasant he's proven very wrong.

There are buckles, and leather, and studs all over Bilbo's floor and the sheet has slipped free from Thorin's wide shoulders. Bilbo makes a noise that he can't quite hold in, and pulls him back down by his hair, legs shifting open without any coaxing from Thorin's hands, until they fit together in a way that's surprisingly easy, given their differences.

The crack in the bed frame will be worse come morning, and the sheets all end up on the floor. One side of the very small bed is abandoned for the other, even harder for two to share, though Bilbo is sweaty and disheveled, and his skin feels loose and warm, so he can't bring himself to care. He briefly wonders if he'd been very wrong indeed about the people who had a 'reputation' all these years. 

"Your bed is ill-suited to this. You could fit four people in mine," Thorin complains. Voice hot against the curve of Bilbo's ear in a way that makes him shiver, and lean in, for all that he's certain he couldn't manage to stir again.

As usual Thorin sets out to prove him wrong.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Overtures](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101749) by [entanglednow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow), [reena_jenkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reena_jenkins/pseuds/reena_jenkins)




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